INTERPRETER§ A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship Volume 33 · 2019 · Pages 305 - 374 Could Joseph Smith Have Drawn on Ancient Manuscripts When He Translated the Story of Enoch?: Recent Updates on a Persistent Question Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Ryan Dahle Offprint Series © 2019 The Interpreter Foundation. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. ISSN 2372-1227 (print) ISSN 2372-126X (online) The goal of The Interpreter Foundation is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ. Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, The Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is neither owned, controlled by nor affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice. This journal is a weekly publication of the Interpreter Foundation, a non-profit organization located at InterpreterFoundation.org. You can find other articles published in our journal at MormonInterpreter.com.Journal.InterpreterFoundation.org. You may subscribeYou may subscribeto this journal to this at journalMormonInterpreter.com/annual- at InterpreterFoundation. print-subscription.org/annual-print-subscription. Could Joseph Smith Have Drawn on Ancient Manuscripts When He Translated the Story of Enoch?: Recent Updates on a Persistent Question Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Ryan Dahle Abstract: In this article, we offer a general critique of scholarship that has argued for Joseph Smith’s reliance on 1 Enoch or other ancient pseudepigrapha for the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses. Our findings highlight the continued difficulties of scholars to sustain such arguments credibly. Following this general critique, we describe the current state of research relating to what Salvatore Cirillo took to be the strongest similarity between Joseph Smith’s chapters on Enoch and the Qumran Book of Giants — namely the resemblance between the name Mahawai in the Book of Giants and Mahujah/Mahijah in Joseph Smith’s Enoch account. We conclude this section with summaries of conversations of Gordon C. Thomasson and Hugh Nibley with Book of Giants scholar Matthew Black about these names. Next, we explain why even late and seemingly derivative sources may provide valuable new evidence for the antiquity of Moses 6–7 or may corroborate details from previously known Enoch sources. By way of example, we summarize preliminary research that compares passages in Moses 6–7 to newly available ancient Enoch texts from lesser known sources. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of findings that situate Joseph Smith’s Enoch account in an ancient milieu. Additional work is underway to provide a systematic and detailed analysis of ancient literary affinities in Moses 6–7, including an effort sponsored by Book of Mormon Central in collaboration with The Interpreter Foundation. 306 • Interpreter 33 (2019) Figure 1. George Campfield, fl. 1861: Enoch, Creation Window, All Saints Church, Selsley, England, 1861.1 This stained glass window, commissioned from the company of craftsmen headed by William Morris, shows Enoch standing in heaven following his final ascension. oth in the expansive nature of its content and the eloquence of Bits expression, Terryl and Fiona Givens consider the account of Enoch in chapters 6 and 7 of the Book of Moses as perhaps the “most remarkable religious document published in the nineteenth century.”2 It was produced early in Joseph Smith’s ministry — in fact in the same year as the publication of the Book of Mormon — as part of a divine commission to “retranslate” the Bible.3 Writing the account of Enoch appears to have occupied a few days of the Prophet’s attention sometime between 30 November and 31 December 1830. According to Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Joseph Smith’s “Book of Enoch” provides “eighteen times as many column inches about Enoch … than we have in the few verses on him in the Bible. Those scriptures not only contain greater quantity [than the Bible] but also … contain … [abundant] new material about Enoch on which the Bible is silent.”4 Current scholarship casts doubt on the assertion that this new material was derived from deep study of the scriptures5 or absorbed in significant measure from Masonic or hermetical influences.6 Hence, the most common naturalistic explanation for the account is that Joseph Smith drew the major themes in the Latter-day Saint stories of Enoch from exposure to ancient Enoch manuscripts from outside the Bible.7 Bradshaw and Dahle, Moses 6–7 and Ancient Enoch Texts • 307 Of these Enoch manuscripts, the best-known is 1 Enoch, a Jewish compilation of five originally separate books thought to have been written between about 200 BCE and 100 CE. 1 Enoch is one of the most important Jewish works of pseudepigrapha, highly valued in the early Christian community and explicitly8 (and implicitly9) cited in New Testament epistles. However, apart from the shared prominence of selected themes in its Book of Parables (in particular a “Son of Man” motif), there are relatively few specific and unique resemblances to Moses 6–7, especially considering the great length of 1 Enoch. Commonalities of equal or perhaps greater interest are also to be found in 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch (e.g., detailed descriptions of Enoch’s heavenly ascent and its characterization of the prophet as a “lad”) as well as the Aramaic Book of Giants (particularly the stories of Enoch’s preaching mission and his battles with formidable adversaries). In addition, scattered passages in late Jewish and Islamic documents provide unique correspondences and sometimes corroborate earlier Enoch sources. Yet none of these sources, except Richard Laurence’s 1821 English translation of 1 Enoch, were published in English prior to Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Moses. Pioneering insights on the relationship between ancient Enoch writings and the Book of Moses can be found in the writings of Hugh W. Nibley, who wrote a series of articles on the subject for the Ensign magazine in 1975–1977. Unfortunately, Nibley received one of the most important manuscripts relevant to his study — Józef Milik and Matthew Black’s 1976 publication of the first English translation of the Book of Giants — only days before the publication deadline for the last article in the series.10 As a result, of the more than 300 pages Nibley devoted to Enoch in the volume that gathered his writings on the subject, only a relative handful were dedicated to these significant Aramaic “Enoch” fragments.11 Regrettably, after Nibley completed his initial research for the Ensign articles, he turned his attention to other subjects and never again took up a sustained study of the relationships between Moses 6–7 and ancient writings on Enoch. In collaboration with David J. Larsen, Bradshaw published a verse- by-verse commentary on Moses 6–7 that includes extensive discussion of related themes in Enoch pseudepigrapha, including the Book of Giants. In the present article, we do not attempt to duplicate what has already been written on this subject.12 Rather, our intent is to summarize and update selected findings from the previous study. 308 • Interpreter 33 (2019) Figure 2. Book of Enoch P, Chester Beatty XII, leaf 3 (Verso), 4th century.13 The leaf shown includes the portions of1 Enoch cited in Jude 1:14–15. Could Joseph Smith Have Borrowed from 1 Enoch? As a starting point for the answer to this question, we observe that since Joseph Smith was well aware that the biblical book of Jude explicitly quotes 1 Enoch,14 the most obvious thing he could have done to bolster his case for the authenticity of the Book of Moses (if he were a conscious deceiver) would have been to include the relevant verses from Jude somewhere within his revelations on Enoch. But this the Prophet did not do. Bradshaw and Dahle, Moses 6–7 and Ancient Enoch Texts • 309 As a second anchor point, the question also requires that we assess the likelihood that Joseph Smith knew about the 1821 publication of Laurence’s translation of 1 Enoch. In his 2010 master’s thesis from Durham University, Salvatore Cirillo15 cites and amplifies the arguments of Michael Quinn,16 arguing that the available evidence that the Prophet had access to this translation of 1 Enoch has moved “beyond probability — to fact.” He sees no other explanation for the substantial similarities that he finds between the Book of Moses and the pseudepigraphal Enoch literature.17 However, Cirillo’s confidence is at odds with the views of other scholars who have addressed this issue. For example, as a result of his study of the potential availability to the Prophet of the 1821 printing of 1 Enoch, renowned Latter-day Saint historian Richard L. Bushman concluded:18 “It is scarcely conceivable that Joseph Smith knew of Laurence’s Enoch translation.”19 Because Joseph Smith’s access to the 1821 printing is unlikely, some scholars have argued that he may have seen a purported 1828 American edition of the work.